This was undoubtedly the most unexpected dive that I have had.

Seventeen days before Eve and I were due to depart for a dive holiday in the Cayman Islands, I had a few minutes to kill and rang the Sunday Times with an answer to a sporting quiz. The prize: two return flight tickets to Las Vegas the following weekend with accommodation and seats at a boxing fight between Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield. To my amazement I won the competition.

I had just read a magazine article on diving Lake Mead near Las Vegas and realised that I had now had the opportunity to do this dive myself. So via the Internet I contacted Neptune Divers of Las Vegas. They were very helpful and kindly arranged a dive for me with local diver, John Troutt. So it was that after flying to Las Vegas on the Friday, I met John at Neptune Divers the following day and we headed off to Lake Mead in his pickup truck.

The dive entry was from a small causeway. A thick layer of silt covered the bottom of the lake. John and I finned along just above the lakebed until having reached a depth of 32 metres we came upon a vertical line. We slowly ascended up this line to the surface of the lake.

With the dive over, it was straight back to Las Vegas to hit the malls, to go to the Lewis-Holyfield fight and finally to take in the sights of Las Vegas by night. Eve and I spent the next day viewing the amazing Grand Canyon before returning to the UK. A small plane had flown us to the Grand Canyon, the pilot being a budding diver who kindly diverted the flight path so that I could take an aerial photograph of Lake Mead.